The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton

May 22

Synopsis

Risk-averse event planner Amerie Price (POV Character) is jobless, newly single, and about to lose her apartment. With no choice but to gamble on her shaky start-up, the last thing she needed was to run into her smug ex and his new, less complicated girlfriend at Amerie's favorite coffee shop. Panicked, she pretends to be dating the annoyingly sexy man she met by spilling Americano all over his abs. He plays along—for a price.

Half the single men in Houston claim to be astronauts, but Vincent Rogers turns out to be the real deal. What started as a one-off lie morphs into a plan: for the three months leading up to his mission, Amerie will play Vincent's doting partner in front of his loving but overly invested family. In exchange, she gets a rent-free room in his house and can put every penny toward her struggling business.

What Amerie doesn't plan for is Vincent's gravitational pull. While her mind tells her a future with this astronaut is too unpredictable, her heart says he's exactly what she needs. As their time together counts down, Amerie must decide if she'll settle for the safe life—or shoot for the stars.

*Blurb taken from Goodreads

Review

As a fellow Houstonian, I’m always pumped to pick up a book set in H-Town. Add NASA on top of that? Sold! Our protagonist, Amerie (or Mimi) functions as a strong, independent FMC who grew up fast and cares deeply for those she considers family. I enjoyed having a protagonist who stands up for herself and sets clear goals to achieve. She has amazing support in her best friend, Gina, who is a fleshed out secondary character, and her parents. Amerie’s mom has sickle cell anemia, and the author’s nod of awareness to this disease was a nice addition. There was also some (but not much—the mood was clearly aimed at a light-hearted romance) commentary on racial inequality.

This was a good debut by Easton. She has a clear grasp of the genre and incorporated some well-loved tropes. Her pacing was executed well up until the final 70% of the novel, at which point things got squished together in order to conclude the plot. The main characters had distinct agency, craft was solid (if nothing special), and the conclusion was satisfying.

Overall, a romance that will have an audience who picks it up and absolutely adores it.

Critiques

I struggled with finishing this one, and I think two main reasons led to this, on top of various smaller critiques that I have.

The narrator’s voice lacked enthusiasm and inflection. It was difficult to tell characters apart sometimes because Pean didn’t shift tone or pitch to distinguish them. There were even times when the FMC and MMC sounded the exact same. Pean also remained fairly monotone throughout, sounding bored as she read, which in turn made me lose interest and have to rewind the audio a few times to catch what I missed. I would recommend the print edition, except I struggled reading this as well, which leads me into my second major critique.
Amerie and Vincent were distant characters. Typically, I can chalk this up to either a lack of agency or the classic Telling over Showing. That wasn’t the case here. My best guess is that, because the characters were so reluctant to open up to one another, I also felt like there was a barrier between me (as a reader) and their emotions. Vincent especially felt placid and flat. I normally don’t advocate for dual POV in a romance, but I actually think we needed it here. For over 50% of the novel, he was a bit of a limp noodle that had to have his teeth pulled to show any emotion whatsoever. It was also difficult to bond with Amerie, and I can’t quite pinpoint why that is. Which might, actually, be the reason. She’s extremely mercurial and mood swings fast. I hate saying that, because girlie, you are allowed your emotions! As a reader, though, it was hard to pin her down and understand where these 180 degree shifts came from, which means I was always getting mini bouts of whiplash. Especially when so many of these swings were her being angry/irritated with Vincent over the tiniest of missteps.
Since I’m a character driven reader, this inability to connect pushed me back to the audiobook despite my struggle with the narrator.

There are many little critiques I have, but I’m going to forgo them to speak on the relationship itself. It felt inorganic and, frankly, like it’s going to get toxic down the road. This is a slooooooow burn. And typically, there’s so much emotional intimacy and sexual tension in such a setup that I don’t mind in the least. Not here. Amerie seemed to genuinely dislike Vincent through a lot of this. He irritated her so much all the way up until basically the 95% mark of this novel. They constantly bicker (NOT banter), and don’t seem to really understand one another. Amerie very much is an independent women, and yet it felt like she needed some time to grow into herself due to the massive emotional upheavals she would have. I think Amerie’s story would have been a wonderful contemporary piece that focused on career growth and family. (And, perhaps, a side love interest.) Instead, we have an FMC with a beautiful story to tell, but who got stuck in a romance plot instead of a literary one.

Final note: They had sex in the last chapter. That was the final piece of intimacy we get before the Epilogue. Other readers probably won’t blink twice, but it led me further into the conclusion that this is a combination of lonely, emotionally confused, lusting adults who have tried to make their puzzle pieces fit and are later going to realize they weren’t a good match to begin with.